Tips on building bass traps

ive been putting together my own absorbers, diffusors, etc... does anybody have any good tips for building your own bass traps? im talking pretty inexpensive too. thanks!

http://www.ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html That's a pretty good start.

What kind of bass traps are you looking to build? There has been a ton of discussion on this board and others about a) what exactly a bass trap is (ie, which methods of acoustic treatment count as being a "bass trap"), and b) how to build them. The membrane absorbers linked in the previous post are useful across a narrow band, but for most small-room studios there are probably better, more effective options. Can you maybe give some details about your room, and about what you've done to it so far?

my room is 12' x 12' square. ceiling is 8'. hardwood floors with no carpet. absorbers are 6' high, 2' wide, and 4" deep (and are hanging close to the ceiling). diffusor is 24" x 24". speakers are sitting about a foot away from the back wall, and about 3 1/2' from the side walls each. the back wall closet is 24'' deep. the shelves are 12" deep. hmmm... anything else? thanks!

Wedge, I see the diffusor behind your speakers. I always thought that putting a diffusor that close to your listening position would make the image more scattered and less detailed. I was always under the impression you need to be like 10 to 12 feet away from diffusors. Does it work OK that way? Tom

tom, hmmm... im not sure. a pal of mine told me to put it there... and not to sound all hoity toity, but he was the sound engineer for ben folds. it is possible that i misunderstood what he said... this IS my first attempt at a studio. ill get back with you on that one. thanks

Well, I am not into recording business, and I don't know ANYTHING about recording (so I don't know what the heck I am talking about, :wink: ), but I've read about ESS (Early Sound Scatering) studios. They have whole front wall covered with diffusors. Supposedly early scatering of sound is good, because instead of few 16dB deeps, you have a lot of 2dB deeps, which is much better for sound. Try to find more on Google. -- Mario

That is cool. I seriously was just asking. I have been trying to get my mind around treating the studio acoustically. I have my own one I am building now and am trying to plan it out. I had a friend give me a whole stack of 2 ft by 2 ft diffusors and I could not figure just yet where to place them. Tom

tmix wrote:

I had a friend give me a whole stack of 2 ft by 2 ft diffusors and I could not figure just yet where to place them. Tom

Again, I am new to this, so I don't know AT ALL what I am talking about, but I've just read somewhere that diffusors wouldn't work very well, if you don't place them at least 4ft by 4 ft. So, if you have four 2ft by 2 ft, I would try to stack them together in 4ft by 4 ft configuration. But where, and why, and whether anything that I wrote has any sense, I really don't know, :? . -- Mario